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They're not going to vote for it
I really am wondering when Democrats are going to be smart enough to understand and accept that Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are quite simply never going to vote for health care reform. I'm not talking about their personal pet demands for amendments, because that's all just cover for it. They're not going to vote for it.
As others have noted, Joe Lieberman has shifted his position on why he's against the bill over a half-dozen times, in some cases directly contradicting his own previous stances. He has specifically taken a position that is impossible to reconcile with the positions of other Senators such as Olympia Snowe. And as Atrios noted, he truly just wants the bill to fail because liberals want it and he hates liberals now. Nelson is a total whore for the insurance industry and no one on any news show wants to bother mentioning that.
They don't want the bill to pass. They aren't trying to compromise; they are trying to kill the bill. And since Democrats remain completely incapable of being the winners in an election, whether or not they actually win elections, they're running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
And now, Japan.
This is, by the way, only one of a series of ads, and not the one that has Quentin Tarantino in it.
Go ahead, investigate that further. I dare you.
Oh, John. It gets much, much worse.
John Cole reaches the peak of his sanity with the Sarah Palin coverage, noting:
We're going to spend the next four years chronicling this know-nothing hustler, and after that four years is up, we'll be right back where we started, staring down the same empty road wondering how in the hell she didn't manage to learn a damned thing in all her travels.
And I suddenly realized after reading that; it's going to get worse. Because the pinnacle of "praise Sarah!" events hasn't happened yet, but will, very, very soon:
Time's going to make Sarah Palin Person of the Year.
Now, here's the thing, if the actual appropriate context of POTY was still applied, Palin would actually be a legitimate candidate. She's by far one of the main people who, better or worse, most affected public events and news this year. But she's going to be picked as a marketing decision. There's no way around it. Consider the cases from a marketing perspective:
1. In the midst of a best-selling book, the general mentality will be that anything with Palin's face on it will sell. Time learned this quite well when they decided Rudy Giuliani would sell more copies than Osama bin Laden.
2. Time's closest print rival is the MSNBC-affiliated Newsweek, which the right currently hates because they ran a "sexist" cover of Sarah. In wingnut logic, making Sarah POTY means a big middle finger to Newsweek.
3. Time's online poll for POTY does not offer Palin as an option. That's, of course, completely ridiculous. She's the Ron Paul of 2009, opinion poll-wise. They eliminated open nominations years ago because the vote ended up being a fight between Jesus Christ and Mick Foley (I'm not kidding), but it's pretty clear that Palin isn't being offered to fabricate a "surprise out of left field" (no pun intended) selection.
4. It shuts kneejerk right-wingers up for at least three years with their "so was Hitler!" whinging everytime a non-conservative is made POTY.
All of that adds up to the final point, though: Sarah is a safe and marketable icon for the anti-Obama, and that's honestly the only real story Time can market right now. The entire year 2009 is going to be analyzed as "how did Obama screw up" and there's no better face for that than Palin.
Also, it's Time, which can have its entire journalistic integrity analyzed via their current online poll titled, and I quote, "Who was responsible for the year's most shocking sex scandal?" I truly think John has no idea what personal hell is just yet.
"Sanctity of Marriage Update"
Thousands of gay couples who wanted to be happily married were denied that right by the New York Legislature last week, thanks in part to a group of right-wingers who as always, wanted to "protect" marriage. In the same week, the other three things mentioned in the strip happened. It's really funny watching people try to defend that which they are claiming to "protect."
A special reminder during this crap-buying season- if you want to order any books or signed prints, you should do so by the end of this week. I am taking orders up to December 20, but after the 12th it's going to cost you extra for priority mail shipping. Happy buying!